BEIRUT — Personnel overseen by a team of international monitors took blowtorches and high-speed saws to Syria's chemical weapons equipment Sunday, the first step on the road to dismantling what is believed to be one of the world's largest arsenals of the weapons of mass destruction.
The destruction of mixing equipment, missile warheads and aerial bombs was carried out by a team of Syrians under supervision from experts from the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the United Nations said in a statement.
The mission, which received the backing of a U.N. Security Council resolution last week, faces a daunting task, dealing with a tight timetable with the added logistical and security challenges of working in the midst of a raging civil war. The 20-member advance team has been quick to get to work since arriving in Damascus on Tuesday.
The pressing schedule sees the elimination of Syria's ability to produce chemical weapons by the beginning of November, before the complete destruction of its stockpiles within nine months.
Work to dismantle delivery and production equipment is relatively straightforward, according to experts, using simple tools, or even vehicles to run over and crush items. It is the later phases — disposing of highly corrosive precursor chemicals and filled warheads — that will pose the biggest challenge. Some precursors are expected to be transported out of the country to be destroyed.
"Syrian personnel used cutting torches and angle grinders to destroy or disable a range of items," the U.N. statement said. "The process will continue in the coming days." It did not disclose the location of the site where the work began.
Syria handed over details of its chemical weapons program to the OPCW after the U.S.- and Russian-backed plan averted the prospects of military strikes by the Obama administration in the wake of the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus that left hundreds dead.
Experts believe Syria has the third-biggest chemical weapons stockpile in the world. U.S. officials have said the stockpile contains hundreds of tons of precursor chemicals for nerve agents such as sarin, as well as ricin and mustard gas, the blistering poisonous gas used in the trenches of World War I.
Some experts and opposition figures have expressed concern that the mission could turn into a cat-and-mouse game, drawing comparisons with efforts to destroy former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons.
Syria's chemical weapons program was developed in the 1980s as a deterrent in the wake of a series of military defeats to Israel. But even without the most feared tool in his military arsenal, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, backed by militants from the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and Iranian forces, outgun the rebels, who threaten to become increasingly consumed by a side fight against al-Qaeda-linked groups in their midst.
While the United States is among countries lobbying to bring the two sides together to find a political solution at talks in Geneva next month, the prospects appear distant. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, due to be published in full Monday, Assad said he would not engage in discussions with rebels until they lay down arms.
Meanwhile, the Syrian National Coalition, the largest opposition political organization, has ever less influence over armed groups on the ground, raising doubts whether it can meaningfully negotiate on their behalf. Damascus officials also have ruled out talks with the coalition after it welcomed the prospect of U.S. airstrikes.
"We don't have any other option than to believe in our victory," Assad told Der Spiegel.
